After the collar, a dress shirt’s most important elements are its cuffs. Like the collar, they’re the transition between your jacket’s cloth and your skin, and a precise fit makes a quiet but elegant statement.
You’ve probably heard that you should show about a half inch of cuff beyond your jacket sleeve. The pro tip here is that a shirt sleeve that simply hangs a bit longer than your jacket will ride up and disappear the minute you raise or bend your arms. What you want are sleeves long enough to hit your wrist in any arms position. When your arms are relaxed, the excess sleeve length should blouse slightly above the cuffs, which are kept in place with a trim fit around your wrist (or your watch, if you wear one).
After a lifetime of wearing loose ready-to-wear cuffs designed to accommodate any wrist, properly snug-fitting cuffs may take some getting used to, but once you’ve noticed how much neater they appear, and how comfortably the cuff always remains where its supposed to be, you’ll never go back. A note on shirt sleeves more generally: don’t get them too tight. A well-cut shirt sleeve (like the rest of a shirt) should neither billow nor bind. A good, comfortable shirt fit is a matter of subtle balance.
Showing the proper amount of shirt cuff even with the arms bent.
Well-fitted shirt sleeves should be trim but never tight.